This will presumably allow the English-learning pupils of today to take their place as the “global citizens” of tomorrow, but not everyone will be convinced it’s a great idea. language of learning and teaching at the Senior Secondary (or equivalent) level of schooling. Sahara The Sahara is the worlds largest hot desert, covering 8.5 million square kilometers (3.3 million square miles), about the size of the South American country of Brazil. The Big Hole, Kimberley Kimberley was put on the mining map when it became clear, it the late 1860s, that the area is rich in diamonds. It is still taught in schools. – The Top Ten Countries, Visit Khomani Cultural Landscape 9th of South Africa’s World Heritage Sites, Gay and Lesbian South Africa Our LGBTI Guide, A Tour of the Most Famous Landmarks in South Africa, hello (a greeting), as in "how is it going", Travelling to South Africa? Removing advertising from your browsing experience is one of them - we don't just block ads, we redesign our pages to look smarter and load faster. “Anyone who wanted to do business with the Dutch authority had to display knowledge of Dutch,” writes Nkonko Kamwangamalu in “When 2 + 9 +1: English and the Politics of Language Planning in a Multilingual Society”. All Rights Reserved. Only South Africa allows for Afrikaans to be the medium of instruction at this level, although in practice English is still the chosen language in the overwhelming majority of cases. Sitemap. This plateau is rimmed by the Great Escarpment which extends northwards to about 10° south of the Equator (i.e. The President is both head of state and head of the executive. The idea that Afrikaans and English are no longer the sole province of white South Africans may makes for a sexy sound bite, but the truth is that this doesn’t represent a major shift in South African language use over the last decade, particularly when it comes to Afrikaans. The results of Census 2001 found that 13,3% of South Africans spoke Afrikaans at home, and by the time Census 2011 rolled around, this figure had risen only fractionally, to 13,5%. Also see South Africanisms and useful Xhosa phrases and Zulu phrases. These lands are covered with rolling grasslands, called highveld, and tree-dotted plains, called bushveld. Of course, many other languages from all over the world are spoken here too; including Portuguese, Greek, Italian, French, Chinese, and so on. Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, English, Tsonga, Swazi, and Venda are some of its official languages. Africans or South Africans and Bantu-speaking people form the major part of the population (approximately 35 million). Eugene Marais' striking poem ‘Winternag’ was published as early as 1905 and in 1915, Totius became the first recipient of the Hertzog Prize for … In 1995 the Ghanaian sociologist Kwesi Prah wrote: “One cannot underemphasise the fact that unless the generation of knowledge, discourse and knowledge transfer is effected in the language of the masses, the conditions of the masses cannot be transformed.” DM, Photo: South Africa fans react after their team lost to Uruguay following their 2010 World Cup Group A soccer match at Loftus Versfeld stadium in Pretoria June 16, 2010. Its capital is Pretoria and largest city is Johannesburg. The South African economy grew by 1.3% in 2017 and 0.8% in 2018. A South African family moved from Soweto to the Orange Farm shantytown in South Africa, December 1989. IsiZulu may be spoken in the greatest number of South African homes, but it is English that is heard in the corridors of power. To the east, south and west of the plateau lands is a mountainous region called the Great … Most of South Africa’s landscape is made up of high, flat areas called plateaus. The major reason why many black people spoke out strongly against being educated solely in African languages during Apartheid was because they spied in this policy the intention of the Nats to block them from entry into high-prestige jobs that required knowledge of English and Afrikaans. Since approximately 91% of South Africa’s landscape is drylands, it makes it susceptible to desertification. Tsonga is a part of Bantu branch of the Niger-Congo languages ... Venda is also known as Luvenda or Tshivenda, and originated from the Bantu language. “English is not a solution to the unravelling of ‘unequal power’ relations in the world but an integral part of the problem,” writes linguist Richard Alexander; but he notes, too, that when people want to hold a protest banner up to an international TV camera, the writing in that banner will often be in English. With the establishment of the Union of South Africa in 1910, English and Dutch were technically bestowed equal status, with Afrikaans added as a part of Dutch in 1925, but in practice English retained top billing until Afrikaners took power in 1948. The situation was flipped when English replaced Dutch as the language of rule in the Cape Colony from 1806 onwards. In South Africa today, English is not just dominant in the education system, but also as the language of power. The majority of children are located Swati one of the 11 official languages of South ... Tsonga is spoken throughout Southern Africa by the Shangaan-Tsonga culture, but is concentrated in Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Swaziland and South Africa. respect for all languages used in the country, including South African Sign Language and the languages referred to in the South African Constitution. Subscribe to our SALI Newsletter for all the latest news. Zulu is the home language of about 22.7% of South Africans; while as many as half of ... SA-Venues.com® has been assisting travellers with their South Africa travel plans since 1999, and is the largest, independent online travel guide for South Africa available in both English and German. Select which newsletters you'd like to receive, Safura Abdool Karim and Aviva Tugendhaft for the Bhekisisa Centre for Health Journalism. Intersectional issues of gender, ethnicity, and race further complicate the matter of identity and make it highly inadvisable to categorise the different people contained within South Africa’s borders. What happens in South African … Parliamentary proceedings are carried out overwhelmingly in English; Hansard, the record of what is said in Parliament, is published in English; and all addresses of national importance – like the state of the nation address, or the annual budget speech – are given in English. Population: 58.5 million people live in South Africa (2019); Capital city: Pretoria has 3 million inhabitants. Britain won the war and in 1910 it established the Union of South Africa. Throughout the development from itinerant teachers to schools and school systems, the family foundation of Christian … In other words, future South Africans are likely to see English as the language of business, science, technology, politics and so on, whereas indigenous African languages may be increasingly relegated to the domestic sphere. As a whole, the South Africa Survey suggests, “only between a quarter and a third of pupils who speak an African language at home learn in that language”. South Africa has one of the world's younger populations by age, according to U.S. government estimates. Last updated on July 28th, 2020. Its official currency is South African … After the South African War the Tweede Afrikaanse Taalbeweging (Second Afrikaans Language Movement) developed, which would build upon the foundation laid in the nineteenth century. S/he is elected by the National Assembly from its own members. Approximately 16 percent of South Africa’s population, or 8.3 million people, cite Xhosa as being their home language. The Sepedi language is spoken most commonly in Mpumalanga, Gauteng and the Limpopo provinces. South Africa is the Rainbow Nation, a title that captures the country's cultural and ethnic diversity.The population of South Africa is one of the most complex and diverse in the world. The learning of two or more languages should be general practice, he stated, to “counter any particularistic ethnic chauvinism”. The country is also home to over 5 million immigrants, especially from the neighboring Zimbabwe.There are eleven major languages of South Africa… Several authors characterise the South African school system as effectively consisting of two differently functioning sub-systems (Fleisch, 2008, Van der Berg, 2008, Taylor and Yu, 2009). It is one of the 11 official South African languages. The majority of the white population (about 60%) is of Afrikaans descent, with many of the remaining 40% being of British or European descent. It is a Bantu language closely related to Zulu, Swazi, and Ndebele. In South Africa, it hasn’t always been either English or Afrikaans that presented a ticket into the formal economy. Most of the coloured population lives in the Northern and Western Cape provinces, whilst the majority of the Indian population lives in KwaZulu-Natal. This echoes the situation all over post-colonial Africa, where the official language of communication has generally been the language of the former colonial power (mainly English, French of Portuguese), even though knowledge of these languages may be minimal. Lily Franey/Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images But when South African president P.W. Click here to see other benefits and to sign-up to our reader community supporting quality, independent journalism. The Setswana language is one of 11 official languages spoken in South Africa, and one of nine indigenous languages chosen for this title in the post-apartheid constitution. Of course, there is little neutral about it: English is the language of global corporatism, which is exactly why there are strong practical reasons for South Africans to learn the language well – however much you might decry its use as the vehicle of imperialism, globalisation and a host of other ills. South Africa is a diverse nation with a population of over 55 million comprising of people different languages, origins, cultures, and religious practices. Through the works of established academics and writers we delve into history, customs and the blending of different ways of life in a cultural landscape that is uniquely South African. The black population of South Africa is divided into four major ethnic groups; namely Nguni (Zulu, Xhosa, Ndebele and Swazi), Sotho, Shangaan-Tsonga and Venda. The dialects originate from Suto, Pedi amd Tswana, but these are all considered to be separate ... Swati, Sewati, Swazi or siSwati are all names for the same language, which is part of the Nguni group. There are 11 official languages in South Africa, of which Xhosa is one of the most widely spoken. In 2001, English was tied for the fifth most spoken home language with Setswana, after isiZulu, isiXhosa, Afrikaans and Sepedi. REUTERS/Dylan Martinez. 5. However, smatterings of it can even be heard as far afield as Botswana. Modern South Africa is a democratic republic with a written constitution. The language is also rich in idioms. May 08, 2020 ... Water wise concepts crucial in landscape design Stay Informed. 3 • LANGUAGE The Xhosa language is properly referred to as isiXhosa . Find and book hotels and accommodation in South Africa. India and China have recorded a similar trend, with newspapers targeted at specific local audiences powering through the readership ranks. It is known as a beautiful language, melodic on the ear. About the Afrikaans Language. It ranked the country first for strength of auditing and reporting standards as well as financing through local equity market. In The News. Within South Africa, the quality of education varies widely. There are numerous subgroups within these, of which the Zulu and Xhosa (two subgroups of the Nguni group) are the largest. There are, of course, consequences to this if the majority of the population is not sufficiently fluent in the language of power. He saw the end result as both important and simple: “Being multilingual should be a defining characteristic of being South African.”. The popularity of English as a home language has grown slightly more significantly, from 8,2% in 2001 to 9,6% in 2011, and this spurt has allowed English to move up a rung in the popularity chart. In South Africa, the city is referred to as 'Tshwane' as the municipality changed its name in 2007. Some of the major landforms in Africa include the Kaapvaal craton and Cape Floral in South Africa, Atlas Mountains, Ethiopian Highlands, Mount Kilimanjaro, Mount Kenya, Sahara Desert, Congo River Basin, Nile River System and the Great Rift Valley. JOHANNESBURG - The Basic Education Department on Saturday said it would challenge some aspects of the judgment which overturned its decision for a … There are eleven official languages in South Africa. Africa is the second largest continent, in terms of size and … Most of South Africa's landscape is made up of high, flat areas called plateaus. For the first one-and-a-half centuries of the Dutch occupation of the Cape, it was Dutch. But the SAIRR’s 2012 South Africa Survey, drawing on figures from the Department of Basic Education, found that 7,6 million of them (around 64%) wish to be taught in English. 3. SAIRR researcher Thuthukani Ndebele said that the overwhelming dominance of English in the South African public school system is unsurprising, “reflecting a global trend for the preference of the language”. The union and later of the … 3 relatively static, but also the! Became a requirement of entry into the civil service Africa’s population, or 8.3 million people cite! 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